M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

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Originally Posted by Tarmop

It doesn`t have to be a full season...it wasn`t supposed to be and Wilson said, it doesn`t have to be (old news again, they`ve made their offer).

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Sorry, not sure I understand fully. Are you saying they have made Loeb an offer already?

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Originally Posted by spiderem

As much as i'd love to see loeb at M-Sport too, i really don't see what is there for him to do so... When he retired from Citroen, it was clear that he didn't want to travel for long period anymore, rallies requiring to be away for 1 week / 10 days at least. With rally cross he could still do a world champioship with shorter travel period. I don't see that has changed.

So unless someone comes with a lot of cash to convince the maestro to drive and pays that car, i think he has enough to do to keep himself busy doing racing in europe with his own team...

I don't know how much resources has Bardall, but it sounds like someone had a dream and wanted his logo on a car (dakar) driven by Loeb. So maybe they have further resouces to have that logo for a WRC season on a car...

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I know rallies take a longer period of time, per event, but if he did a full RX season last year and three WRC events, I think he may be tempted. I also think winning in Spain gave him a buzz like he hasn't had for a long time and he may just have had enough of a break to let the elements he didn't like dissipate.

Complete speculation or whatever, but I just have a little feeling it might happen. And let's face it, who wouldn't want to see him in a Ford, working for Malcolm and having a good crack at it.

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Originally Posted by T16

Sorry, not sure I understand fully. Are you saying they have made Loeb an offer already?

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Umh, where have you been? It has been discussed here also. Also quite logical...
https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/20598

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Originally Posted by Tarmop

Umh, where have you been? It has been discussed here also. Also quite logical...
https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/20598

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Lots of places.

I hadn’t seen that before. Fingers crossed then.

https://www.autosport.com/awards/new...ally-car-award

I'd say it's well deserved.

It did look like the most allround car. They only really struggled in Finland and a bit in Argentina (but there start position and weather on saturday had an effect). Otherwise they never really seem to have big setup issues.
For Hyundai it's the norm to struggle with setup on friday and has also been last year and they now added tarmac rallies to Finland on the list of rallies where they struggle.
Toyota was faster (for sure in second half) but it still seems fragile and/or forced to run on dangerous setup (GB especially). Seemingly when the setup is safer for rough rallies they struggle (Turkey, Sardinia).

I agree, the Fiesta was tough and reliable as well as fast... and there were few complaints from the driver's.

People will talk about the Yaris but it was only faster for half the season and was always prone to damage.

It started grabbing SS wins from the very first round and look how many they (or one) had them in the end. So good, but i wouldn`t say it is the fastest of all.

Ford's Gerard Quinn interviewed by Colin Clark :

https://kitchentablesd.podbean.com

Timo Suninen Twitter:

We started our first trip together today with my new co-driver @SalminenMarko. First couple of days testing before heading to Rally Monza. Very important season ahead of us driving a @MSportLtd prepared Fiesta WRC.

Looks like official confirmation that
M-Sport are in the hunt next year.

Good news.